The company unveiled this week Windows Azure Virtual Machine Role, intended to ease migration of these applications by eliminating the need to make costly application changes. Customers would get the benefit application management costs by moving software to the cloud, said Jamin Spitzer, Microsoft director of platform strategy.

"I think Virtual Machine Roles get customers and partners more comfortable with Windows Azure as a platform," Spitzer said.

Virtual Machine Role leverages Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology. A public beta release of Virtual Machine Role is due by the end of 2010.

Microsoft announced Virtual Machine Role at PDC. The company at the event also reiterated its support for Java on Azure, intending to make it a "first class citizen" on the cloud and stressed efforts to improve Eclipse tooling for Azure. "It will get even better than it is today," Spitzer said.

The screen was particularly good. It is bright and visible from most angles, however heat is an issue, particularly around the Windows button on the front, and on the back where the battery housing is located.

My first impression after unboxing the Q702 is that it is a nice looking unit. Styling is somewhat minimalist but very effective. The tablet part, once detached, has a nice weight, and no buttons or switches are located in awkward or intrusive positions.

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